


Shuffles and Steps

by brightblackholes



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Tap Dancing, dancer!ronan, the barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightblackholes/pseuds/brightblackholes
Summary: Ronan started tap dancing because he loved the sound of hard soled Irish dancing but hated having to keep his upper body still.  He stopped once his father died.  Now, however, it may be time to start again.Written for writer's month day 5: sound





	Shuffles and Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I LOVE tap dancing.
> 
> Written for writer's month day 5: sound

It takes a long time for Ronan to check all of the barnes scattered throughout the property. He decides to look through the last one at the end of a day spent with Adam, and it’s been so long since he’s been in it that the emptiness startles him until he flicks the light on and he sees his reflection in a mirror.

He hasn’t danced since his father died. The floor is currently dirt, but Ronan knows that there’s a small device in the corner that will expand to cover the floor in vinyl dance floor. It was arguably one of his most precious dream objects, but he didn’t have the foresight to take it with him to Monmouth. It wasn’t very useful when he didn’t feel like dancing.

His tap shoes still rest on the shelf near the door. He wonders what it would feel like to put them on again.

He misses it enough in that moment to fold out the floor and lace up the shoes. They still fit naturally, the leather having stretched and formed to his feet and with the barn insulated to keep them from freezing or cracking during the winters he was away.

Ronan started tap dancing because he loved the sound of hard soled Irish dancing but hated having to keep his upper body still. Tap dancing turned out to be a much better fit and he dived in feet first. It became a release of sorts. Ronan would spend hours in this barn creating different rhythms with his feet, feeling all of his stress or annoyance and the outside world fade away with each well-placed sound.

Even after his dad died and he hung up his shoes, he sometimes finds his feet moving in familiar patterns. Given a long enough time standing in Monmouth by himself, a shuffle will slip out, followed by an Alexander and some paradiddles.

The first step on the dance floor almost seems to echo in the empty barn. Ronan stomps. Once all remnants of sound die out, he shuffles. It sounds crisp in the stillness.

_ Shuffle step. Shuffle step. _

He does a buffalo. He does the time step. He does a maxie ford turn. He spins and drags his toe. He starts to dance.

_ Shuffle heel ball change flap flap step _ .

_ Cramp roll cramp roll shuffle hop step. _

_ Step hop scuff step hop scuff step. _

_ Wing wing shuffle shuffle step stamp brush shuffle step. _

_ Step chug step shuffle jump toe. _

_ Over the log, over the log, turn step flap step heel heel. _

He dances and just… doesn’t stop. The barn fills with the sound of his shoes against the floor. It’s possibly the best sound he’s heard in a very long time. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sound of metal on vinyl until he hears it alongside his heartbeat, but soon everything around him fades away until he all he can focus on is the movement of his feet and the sound they’re producing.

“Kerah?”

Ronan stops, breathing hard. Opal stands in the doorway, bits of leaves and grass stuck to her furry legs.

“That’s not my name. You have a mouth and a brain. Use them.”

Opal rolls her eyes impressively. She steps onto the floor carefully, barely producing a sound, but when she clomps over to him the footsteps click loudly. She startles, then grabs on to his pants, staring down at her feet.

“You’re fine,” he says. “It’s just the floor and your hooves.”

She steps in place a few times. He shuffle steps. She takes a few steps back and looks at his feet, and he repeats the step. Opal stomps three times in quick succession. Ronan mimics the sound. She smiles.

It’s impossible to shuffle in hooves, but Opal seems content to watch him dance and jump around beside him, so that’s what happens. He dances. She jumps and stamps her hooves. Opal gets a bit to exuberant at one point and almost falls, but she laughs it off, and the scrambling of her hooves against the vinyl make Ronan laugh, too, then neither of them really stop. They dance and they laugh and Ronan thinks Opal is smiling more than he’s ever seen. He twirls her under his arm and she stops her way through it.

By the time they stop, the sun has begun to dip below the horizon, painting the Barnes in pinks and golds. Opal’s stomach rumbles, and Ronan realizes that he’ll have to provide her with actual food or suffer through watching her try to eat the tin cans in the recycling bin. He doesn’t want to stop yet, but Opal stares at him with big eyes once his own stomach makes a noise as well.

He can always come back. His home is his again, which means this barn and the tap shoes he keeps in it are his again, too.

Ronan takes off his shoes and switches back to his boots, then touches the corner that folds the dance floor back up. Opal stands back, and he takes her hand after he slides the barn door closed.

**Author's Note:**

> It was my sister's idea to have Opal join him, and I love her way too much to resist.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
